Isaiah 1:25

I will attack you; ¹  I will purify your metal with flux. ²  I will remove all your slag. ³ 

I will turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities.

"I will also turn My hand against you, And will smelt away your dross as with lye And will remove all your alloy.

I will turn against you. I will melt you down and skim off your slag. I will remove all your impurities.

I'll give you the back of my hand, purge the junk from your life, clean you up.

And my hand will again be on you, washing away what is unclean as with soap, and taking away all your false metal;

I will turn my hand against you; I will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy.

I will turn My hand against you, And thoroughly purge away your dross, And take away all your alloy.

I will attack you; ¹  I will purify your metal with flux. ²  I will remove all your slag. ³ 

¹ tn Heb “turn my hand against you.” The second person pronouns in vv. 25-26 are feminine singular. Personified Jerusalem is addressed. The idiom “turn the hand against” has the nuance of “strike with the hand, attack,” in Ps 81:15 HT (81:14 ET); Ezek 38:12; Am 1:8; Zech 13:7. In Jer 6:9 it is used of gleaning grapes.

² tn Heb “I will purify your dross as [with] flux.” “Flux” refers here to minerals added to the metals in a furnace to prevent oxides from forming. For this interpretation of II בֹּר (bor), see HALOT 153 s.v. II בֹּר and 750 s.v. סִיג.

³ sn The metaphor comes from metallurgy; slag is the substance left over after the metallic ore has been refined.